Al Qaeda committed ‘truly shocking’ human rights abuses including crucifixions and the beheading of an alleged sorceror during its 16 months in control of a southern region of Yemen, a report by Amnesty International claimed today.

The London-based charity has also released a video which appears to show a suspected thief having his hand amputated by the Ansar al-Sharia militia, which seized power of the Abyan governorate in February 2011.

Amnesty said dozens more civilians were then killed during reckless counter-insurgency operations by the Yemeni government as it sought to win back the territory from the Al Qaeda-affiliated group.

The tragedies would ‘haunt Yemen for decades to come’ unless the perpetrators were caught and the families compensated, the charity said.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said: ‘Abyan experienced a human rights catastrophe as Ansar al-Sharia and government forces vied for control of the region during 2011 and the first half of 2012.

‘The Yemeni authorities must ensure that a commission of inquiry announced in September covers the truly shocking abuses committed.

‘The tragedy of Abyan will haunt Yemen for decades to come unless those responsible are held to account and victims and their families receive reparations.’

Amnesty’s 55-page report, Conflict in Yemen: Abyan’s Darkest Hour, documents violations of the rules of war during the armed conflict between government forces and Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist armed group affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It details horrific human rights abuses committed in the governorate of Abyan and other areas in the south of Yemen during the rule of the Islamist group between February 2011 and June 2012.

In addition, the report shows that the Yemeni government response to Ansar al-Sharia included indiscriminate attacks resulting in the unnecessary loss of civilian life, obstructing medical care and subjecting suspected fighters to enforced disappearance.

There are also reports that some of the air strikes documented in this report may have been carried out by U.S. drones, which appear to have been active during the conflict.

After it took control of most of Abyan during 2011-12, Amnesty says Ansar al-Sharia was responsible for widespread human rights abuses, including via its newly-established ‘religious courts’.

These frequently imposed cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments on alleged criminals, suspected spies, those accused of ‘sorcery’ and people who transgressed cultural norms, it added.

Punishments included summary killings – including at least one post-execution crucifixion – amputations and floggings.

In one case, 28-year-old Saleh Ahmed Saleh al-Jamli was found guilty by a religious court in the town of Ja’ar of planting electronic devices in two vehicles carrying Ansar al-Shari’a commanders.

The ruling obtained by Amnesty said the devices had enabled U.S. drones to kill commanders in Zinjibar and claimed Saleh al-Jamli ‘confessed’ to a judicial committee.

The court ruled that Saleh al-Jamli should be killed, and his remains crucified. Meanwhile, Ansar al-Shari’a amputated the hand of at least one person suspected of theft.

One of them was a young man Amnesty met whose left hand had been amputated in a public square in Ja’ar.

He was arrested along with two of his friends by members of the armed group and accused of stealing electric wires.

The friends were eventually released but the youth, a member of a marginalised community widely referred to as al-akhdam (servants), said that he was tortured for five days without access to a lawyer or his family, and then had his left hand amputated without attending a trial and without prior knowledge of the punishment.

Amnesty has been given a 90-second video appearing to show the amputation being carried out. Residents told Amnesty that the amputated hand was later suspended by a rope in the town’s market for all to see.

Ansar al-Sharia also sought to tighten its grip on power through threats, intimidation and the enforcement of a highly repressive social and religious code.

The rights of women and girls in particular came under attack and severe dress codes were imposed, as was a strict separation of the sexes and restrictions at work and in schools.

After Ansar al-Shari’a took over Abyan and extended its reach to other areas in the south, the Yemeni military launched several attacks to regain control, culminating in a major offensive on May 12 this year using air power and artillery.

By the end of June, government forces had succeeded in driving the group out of Abyan and surrounding areas.

In the process, Amnesty claims the Yemeni government forces used inappropriate battlefield weapons such as artillery in civilian residential areas.

Scores of civilians, including children, were killed and many more injured as a result of air strikes and artillery and mortar attacks by government forces.

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mobilebay

When is the world going to be outraged enough to speak out about these savages? They cannot exist with rational human beings. Their murderous mindset makes them blind to anything that resembles empathy for anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. I’d like to see our military and all US civilians out of the middle east and to have this country independent of the oil they buy from any of the Muslim countries. Let them kill each other off!

You Are Now Enriched

This story will be dismissed as “divisive and inflammatory Islamaphobia and is blashemy against the coming world Caliphate”.

Muslims have us figured out. When we point out facts, they scream like victims, and thanks to our deification of victimhood, we change course and start attacking White privilege, which never can be a victim, but is always a justified target of therapy for changing attitudes and correcting behaviours..

The__Bobster

Hmmm, that sounds like another ethnic group that we dare not mention.

Puggg

Grover Norquist is in the news a lot lately. Most people don’t realize that one of his big hobby horses, other than making politicians sign goofy useless pledges, is pushing to let people like these immigrate here.

Greg Thomas

Anyone who condemns or speaks out in protest against this barbaric, animalistic behavior will be vilified a “racist” and contributing to “Islamaphobia.”

The reason is because Yemen retains the death penalty for a wide variety of offenses that include many of the sexually immoral activities that white liberals love to engage in.

Michael_C_Scott

It’s also because most white liberals are neither as dirt-stupid as Amy Biehl or as moonbat crazy as Rachel Corrie were.

HadEnough

Quick someone call the Catholics and Lutherans, we need their “relief services” to import some more of these vermin as “refugees.”

guest

This is why muslim integration in our society is a terrible idea. They want to impose their sharia law that stems from a cult that’s living in caveman times. Of course, us being against this makes us islamophobic, but who even cares anymore? These days, being islamophobic is more of a sign of common sense and sanity than it is an insult from the leftists.

IstvanIN

It is none of our business. They should stay in their countries and we in ours. To each his own. We should stop meddling in other peoples affairs.

Svigor

I’d add that I bet the Yemenis don’t have any immigration problems.

rebelcelt

yes, exactly , a problem for THEM to solve.Just keep them out of the west. ALL OF THEM.

TheCogitator

Our government should get the hell out of the middle east at leave those savages to their own devices.

Moslems do not share our values and we will NEVER be able to live peacefully in the same neighborhood. They need to stay in the middle east unmolested by us. We need to keep them out of our lands.

In the long haul, I believe Islam is a greater threat to us than the Mexican invasion, or black pollution.

FourFooted_Messiah

It’s an even bigger immediate threat than chemical pollution of waterways. Seriously.

The__Bobster

Chemical pollution can be cleaned up. Not so with genetic pollution.

FourFooted_Messiah

Islam is a rights tragedy all around – human and animal.

Normally, I consider Amnesty International to be a bunch of liars – a friend of mine years ago who was taking a criminology course pointed out one of their lies, that Canada still has the death penalty for traitors. It does not. If we did, then Brian Mulroney would have been swinging ages ago, along with PET.

But this, yeah. Islam is nothing but a horrorshow, that needs to be blotted out of the human psyche one way or another.

Keep Honkin I’m Reloading

Won’t be shedding a tear.
The only good muzzie…

Nathanwartooth

Wouldn’t stopping Muslim immigration be much more effective than spending almost a trillion dollars a year overseas fighting them? But of course that would be racist.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it seems like we have “you know who’s” (not Voldemort’s) best interest in mind and not our own when we head over the middle east.

Cesare

You know something really asinine ? The U.S. gov’t is fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, then supporting them in Syria to overthrow Assad. But when did gov’t ever

have common sense ?

ATBOTL

The situation in Yemen is virtually a mirror image of the situation in Syria, except the US government is backing the regime and fighting along side it.

Howard W. Campbell

I would say that this situation is a tragedy, but it is not our problem. When I was in elementary school, I heard a story about a group of people who went on a safari to South Africa. While riding around they stop to look at a group of (I believe) gazelles. From out of nowhere, a couple of lions corral and start killing a weakened member of the gazelle pack. In the back of the vehicle this hysterical woman starts screaming at the guide to “do something about this”. He takes her out of the vehicle and drives off for a short period of time. When he retrieved this woman, she had bat brains enough to keep her mouth shut on the way back to the lodging. Housecats normally weigh anywhere from 7 -12 lbs, but if two of them are fighting, I wouldn’t stick my hand in there to break it up. As a friend of mine who was an EMT once said, “90% of my job is interfering with natural selection”.

We have no business interfering with what these people do. The Middle East is worse than Joel Chandler Harris’ Tar baby. Bringing these people here to save the from a 3rd world hellhole is just going to create more 9/11’s and Major Hasan’s. A few people from that part of the world (mostly Marionite Christians – i.e. Jamie Farr and General John Abizaid) can function well in the west. However, most of them should just be left there.

Robert Binion

I’ve been to the quaint Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, Georgia. It was said there that his use of dialect is fairly accurate. People should read him more. Far from stealing African culture, he preserves it. Like modern or medieval music, his language cleans out your ears.

Michael_C_Scott

Perhaps the Jesusoidal morons should be given more of our tax money to launder it through “charities” so they can move these murderous subhuman filth to Lewiston, Maine.